Blasphemous

good ol platformin, nice pixel art, gud music == fun video game :>

One of those games you give yourself an hour to play and up spending much, much more time than you set aside. Reminds me quite a bit of Bloodstained (which I loved). It progresses very smoothly and sets the right amount of anticipation.

Blasphemous is an action-adventure/Metroidvania. The protagonist is the Penitent One whose goal is unknown until the epilogue, the world is generally a rather grim place filled with the undead and people enthusiastically engaging in self-harm. There are 3 endings. The combat is satisfying, including the ridiculously gory execution animations, which is encouraged by the game. The bosses and regular foes are diverse in appearance and behaviour, offering engaging and rewarding combat encounters. The location design is varied, with areas having environmental obstacles and hazards. The downside is the presence of instantly killing spike pits. The items providing traversal or non-combat abilities offer a significant benefit, though none of them is required to finish the game. Other aspects of the character upgrade system are health, mana (Fervour), the number and potency of the healing flasks, the attack power and moves, the spells (Prayers), and the number and setup of the passive abilities (Rosary Beads). All of them, except the attack moves which also require experience (Tears of Atonement) to unlock in addition to the shrines, are discovered during exploration and some might require additional items and NPCs. At no point the protagonist is locked into a poor build. Many mechanics are not explained, while affecting the experience, including scrolling through item descriptions (H and Y, hard-coded) and side quests. The saving system is forgiving - dying leads to the last shrine and a debuff that slightly decreases the experience gain and the maximum mana and can be removed. There are several save slots, but each playthrough auto-saves into a single one. The controls are mostly rebindable and comfortable, and 5-button mice are supported. Some of the controls are hard-coded and not listed anywhere. The visual style is inspired by religious art and readable, but the fonts are extremely hard to see or read. The soundtrack is fitting, all NPC lines are voiced.

I've never played the soulslike games (darksoul, bloodbourne etc) before, but this feels really great! I heard that the most entertaining part of the soulslike game is feeling of satisfaction when you beat the hard part, and this game does the same too. And yes, It feels really good. Also I liked the RPG thingies too. Rosary, skills, and Mea Culpa upgrades makes the experience of the game more engaging. but If I have to say some down parts, the enemies on the field are sometimes very annoying, they really disturbs the player's experience sometime and even makes you want to quit the game. Lastly by the way, there's some collectible stuff ingame. But even if you don't like collectible contents, it is not that stressing, and is pretty reasonably made.

The pixel art in this game is gorgeous, and the heavy Spanish folklore makes it incredibly unique. It has a take on religious themes that I haven't seen very often, if at all. You can see right from the start that the team put a lot of love and care into these sprites. The gameplay is very tight, frustratingly so, but I didn't feel it was the game's fault and instead blamed it on my lack of attention or on a miscalculation. It's punishing until you get the hang of it. It's unforgivingness makes it all the more rewarding. Each area has its own mechanics and while the enemies might be a little repetitive at times, the bosses certainly aren't. With that said, the game does have issues which I hope will get patched in the future: things such as game savings not being read depending on whether you launched it through the GOG client or not; WASD keys are hardcoded and can't be remapped; the controls reset every time you launch the game; unlockable skins can go missing after closing the game; and more subjective annoyances such as the character grabbing every single edge whether you like it or not; scrolling/moving the camera up and down requiring their own keys which seems impractical and dodging being a bit inconsistent (some enemies you can dash through, others will still hit you). I've seen complaints about game-breaking issues (elevators getting stuck or a boss glitching once the fight is over) but I've been lucky and haven't encountered any of those so far. Despite all those problems, I could enjoy the hell out of Blasphemous and I'm not done with it yet. However, as much as I love it, I know not everyone will be as willing to tolerate the bugs listed above, so I can't fully recommend the purchase in its current state. I I'd suggest to wait for either a sale or a patch fixing the most critical issues.